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Chapter 160- Tastes like Ashes
🕑 Added 2024-06-27 22:59:00 +0000 UTCIris watched the pot of water boil over the stove and quickly turned down the heat. Opening the lid, she added a few choice herbs and spices to the now simmering water and let it steep for two minutes. She strained the water into a porcelain cup and stirred it in a figure of eight, watching carefully as the beverage turned golden brown. Finally, after an additional three minutes had passed, she took her first sip.
It was perfect, an exquisite blend of flavours sourced from across two dozen planets, in three separate stellar systems. It tasted like ash in her mouth. Her memory had been tampered with. She was certain of it, but no matter what she did, she could find no traces of such magic on her person. Whoever had done it was a master of their craft. If it wasn't for the contingencies and fail safes she'd set up, even she would have doubted herself. One of the oldest tricks in the books, affixing a certain phrase in her mind that let her know something had been done to her: Everglade red-moss tea. Most competent mind-mages would know to look out for such a trick, which meant that whoever had worked on her was an amateur.
That didn't line up with the expertise her memories had been altered with. She couldn't even recall a hint of what she'd been made to forget. Had the magician left her with the suspicion simply to torment her? It was working if that was the case. When you couldn't trust your most sacred place, the parts of you who made you who you were, what could you trust? All her life, she'd followed a path someone had set before her, stifled by the shackles of thousands of rules and regulations she'd had to follow.
She was certain that somewhere in her father's castle, there lay a book that detailed the course her life would take for the next century. Even her flight to this tier-one planet probably factored into her father's plans somehow. It wasn't so much a control thing; she knew her father cared for her, but the nature of his being and his magic made it almost impossible for her to act without him being aware of it one way or another. Her unique childhood experiences had shaped her into the woman she was today, and there were few things that she truly claimed as her own.
The first was her magic. She possessed an affinity for reading the future that stumped all the tutors her parents had hired. There were many names for it: divining, fate-reading, clairvoyance. Iris knew it by something much simpler. Her magic was as mundane as it was powerful: pattern recognition. Iris' skills let her read the patterns found in everything- the winds blowing, the clouds in the night sky, the way a man's decision to leave his house would cause a street cat to go hungry on the other side of the city. There were patterns in everything and her magic let her understand them in a way no one else could. Of course, there was more to her affinity than simple pattern recognition- she was hardly the first person to develop such a skill, but she prided herself on the thousands of hours she'd spent refining the ability. That was the first thing she called her own in a world where everything had been handed to her on a silver platter.
The second was her mind. She'd honed her brain for the last decade, from using the esoteric arts of desert Bedouins on tier-one planets that lacked water to the highly sophisticated arts of Mallenans, a hyper-focused race that had left the comfort of flesh to become beings of pure energy, piloting mech suits that granted one the power of an elite class. Iris had scoured hundreds of planets finding innovative ways to improve and develop her thought processes, to the point that she'd developed her own epic skill, Alien Mind. It was why the mental manipulation hit her so hard. She'd worked so hard to prevent something like this from happening.
Ashley couldn't care less about the mental violation; in her words, they were lucky the mind mage hadn't done more. It was clear to her that whoever the mind-mage was, they'd helped them deal with the blood beast and healed Ashley Rhye. Of course, they wanted their privacy after managing such a feat. It made sense. Iris could almost find herself agreeing with her best friend. There was only one problem: Everglade Red-moss tea. The patterns just didn't make sense. She wasn't even sure why, only that she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was missing something.
Sighing wearily, Iris drained the rest of her tea in a single massive gulp, an act that would certainly have all connoisseurs across the universe pulling out their hair. She massaged her temples, willing the headache that had been plaguing her to go away. Unfortunately, the pain stubbornly remained. There was little she could do about the mental manipulation now, at least until she left the planet and met a specialist in the field. That didn't make ignoring the issue any easier, though. Luckily for her, life had managed to serve up a distraction in the form of a steaming pile of shit.
The vampire coven, Ozarah, responsible for all the problems in her life right now, had demanded a meeting.
Ashley, the acting leader of their presence on Earth, had of course immediately denied the meeting. Only a fool would agree to meet with monsters who killed so wantonly. That was when they delivered an ultimatum. The vampires had created an additional five primed humans, ready to explode at a moment's notice. Ashley would agree to meet with them, or a lot of people would end up dead. Iris would have dismissed the threat as empty air. Forcing soul explosions and priming humans for them was hardly an easy feat. She estimated that the most recent fiasco had cost the permanent loss of over half of Borelus' power, the level 243 savage vampire responsible for all the bloodbeasts. Creating any more monsters would kill the man. Unfortunately, that was exactly what had happened. A little investigative work later, they'd found the dried-out husk of the once powerful vampire in an old abandoned military base. It was clear as day that he had been left there for them to find. From there, it didn't take long to determine his cause of death. The bastard had died from creating one Bloodbeast too many, and from the clear signs of torture on his deceased body, it looked like he hadn’t had a choice.
The first rule of criminal negotiation taught that you should never acquiesce to their demands. It placed them in a position of power and made it significantly more likely for their subsequent demands to be accepted. Right now, however, they had little choice but to go along with the Ozarah coven's request for a meeting. Iris didn't need her seer skills to tell her that things weren't looking so good. She was pulled from her musings when Ayesha barged in through the doors.
"The bastard's arrived. They were smart enough to send a proxy, though, so most of our preparations are useless," she said, visibly frustrated. She had dark circles under her eyes, her physical stats were far too low to deal with the stress and rigours of the last 48 hours. I always tell her to raise her constitution. Why doesn't the idiot listen to me?
"It's a shame, but if the vampires were fools, they wouldn't be such a thorn in our side. The tracking rituals I set up should at least tell us the general direction of their bombers, but anything else will be left up to chance.” Iris said. Though she put on a veneer of calm, she was a second away from putting her head through the wall. Why was nothing going right?
Leaving the room, Iris followed Ayesha through a series of twisting corridors till they reached a massive hallway, a place that was formerly used to host a musical club. Today, it was the location of their meeting. Already, Iris could see their visitor had arrived, a young teenager of around thirteen years of age, with sandy blonde hair and green eyes. His pale skin was covered in tell tale signs of the vampire's possession: bloodshot eyes and black veins snaking across his face. The child stank of rotting flesh. The body had been dead for a long time, and only powerful magic held the corpse together. Iris knew the Ozarah Coven had come in such a way to throw them off balance, but it was hard to remain logical and collected at the sight of the desecrated body.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," The vampire spoke, using the child's voice. "I hear you're largely responsible for our failed venture with the bloodbeasts. I am Ishaya, the leader of our presence on this planet and I have come to bargain."
"Give us the territory of blood."
Ayesha scoffed even as Iris' stomach dropped. "And why would we do that, you fool?" Ayesha said. "Your kind is unwelcome here, a lingering rot that refuses to die out. You've caused enough suffering already. You live only on borrowed time."
Iris didn't need to be a seer to see what was coming next. It made her sick to her stomach, and she cursed her ineptitude at the moment.
"Because, my dear, if you don't give us the territory, a lot of people will die." The possessed child smiled a rictus grin that looked downright creepy on the innocent face. "I've just let one of our little presents go. You know what that means, don't you?"
Ayesha was stumped for a second as she tried to figure out what the vampire was trying to say. The smile on the child's face looked more natural now, less forced. Whoever the vampire behind him was, they were taking genuine pleasure in this conversation. Iris could almost see the monster's intent through the young boy's dead eyes, a pitiless gaze that took sadistic joy in anothers suffering, and in that moment, there were few things she hated as deeply as the Ozarah Coven. Ayesha's skin paled as she finally realized what was going on.
"Don't tell me you-"
"I was starting to think you were slow," Ishaya interrupted, the vampire's voice sickly sweet. "One of our pets just detonated. Three hundred and forty-six children dead. This one's school in fact. Ah, it's Three hundred and forty-seven now. Even falling debris will kill you when you're so fragile."
Ayesha lunged forward, rage exploding out of her in a physical form as aura, and Iris only just managed to stop her from attacking the child. "You can't hurt him, Aish. The kid's already dead. The only link between them now is a weak tether of magic," she said, her voice oddly calm, surprising even her. "Save your wrath for when it matters."
"Yes, Aish. Listen to your pet mage," the vampire mocked. "Three hundred and forty-seven children died today. Only you can prevent that number from going any higher."
"You can have the territory," Ayesha spat, seething, "But get rid of your primed humans first."
"And why would we do that, dear? You have nothing to bargain with, and we both know your fragile heart won't allow more loss of innocent life today. Give the orders to your people. I want them moving away from the territory within the next three minutes. If they're not five miles away within seven minutes, another human goes boom. For every minute thereafter, you'll pay with hundreds of lives. Once we have the territory, we'll see about having discussions regarding the primed humans."
It was one of the most one-sided deals Iris had ever seen. Agreeing to it was madness. They'd basically be handing their enemies the Sword of Damocles, which they could forever hold over their heads.
"Forty seconds. Decide quickly, or your time will cost you," the vampire said.
They didn't need Ishaya to elaborate on what exactly that entailed. Iris could see that Ayesha had frozen up. Her best friend was panicking. She didn't know what to do.
"Agree to their terms. I'll deal with the primed humans," Iris sent telepathically. Ayesha looked at her, the expression on her face akin to a deer in headlights. She nodded her head almost imperceptibly and seemed to draw on an untapped reservoir of strength, purpose returning to her eyes. She glared at the vampire's puppet.
"You have an accord."
Ishaya smiled. “I'm glad you could see things my way. I think I may have overstayed my welcome, though. Your maid's got a scary look in her eyes."
Iris ignored the vampire's words, focusing instead on the magic puppeteering the child's body. She traced its patterns, analysing it carefully before committing it to memory. She'd remember that magic, store it so far down the recesses of her memory no mind-mage would ever be able to make her forget it. Taking a glass of water from the table, she took a sip.
For some reason, it tasted like ashes in her mouth.
